Francis Ford Coppola’s Megalopolis is reportedly struggling to find a distributor. The science-fiction drama has been a longtime passion project for Coppola, who began writing it in as early as 1983, resulting in the director funding the production with $120 million of his own money. With a star-studded cast that includes Adam Driver, Giancarlo Esposito, and Aubrey Plaza, the story follows an idealist architect (Driver) who wants to rebuild New York as a megalopolis after a global disaster.
According to a report from The Hollywood Reporter, a Megalopolis screening was held on March 28 to find distribution. Executives from studios including Warner Bros., Disney, Netflix, and Paramount were in attendance. Despite immense curiosity in the project, potential distributors were left disappointed and disinterested in picking it up. While attendees’ opinions vary on the quality of the film, the overall consensus in the report is that Megalopolis is too niche to be commercially successful, but a smaller studio won’t be able to support an extensive marketing push, along with the IMAX release Coppola envisioned.
Studios’ reluctance to pick up Megalopolis for distribution is a microcosm of a larger issue in Hollywood, which is the reluctance to distribute projects that are not commercially safe. A specialty label founder at the Megalopolis screening shared that “I liked it enormously,” and “it is a very big film” that “has a real life. … How do you define commercial? You look at movie like Blade Runner and it became so much more commercial than on opening weekend.” Even though Blade Runner did not do well at the box office, it became a beloved and acclaimed science-fiction film.
Nevertheless, this specialty label will not be picking up Megalopolis, even if it is the next Blade Runner. Another attendee at the screening admits that Megalopolis does “wobble, wander, go over all the place? Yes. But it’s really imaginative and does say something about our time.” The imaginative filmmaking and timeliness of its themes makes the project even more intriguing, and yet it is still being passed on after being deemed commercially unsafe. Studios are struggling with the prospect of mounting a large marketing campaign for the movie, which could cost close to $100 million.
There needs to be room in Hollywood for more than “commercial” blockbusters and small independent films. There also needs to be a space for big-budget projects that are original and not part of an established franchise or intellectual property. With names like Coppola and Driver attached to the film, it’s far from an unknown quantity. Hopefully, a studio will ultimately pick up Megalopolis, finally bringing Coppola’s compelling vision into theaters.
Source: The Hollywood Reporter